Sleep doesn’t just recharge the body’s batteries. It also may give the brain a chance to vanquish painful memories. A new study finds that while dozing, people can lessen their fears. The trick: getting that shut-eye in a room that carries a scent linked with those fears.

“It’s a remarkable finding,” Edward Pace-Schott told Science News. A sleep neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, he was not involved in the new work. Neuroscientists study the brain and nervous system.